History

Founded in 1924, The Hindustan Times is a broadsheet format newspaper based in India. They cover local, national, and international news.

Read our profile on India’s Media and Government.

Funded by / Ownership

The Hindustan Times is owned by M.P. Shobhana Bhartia, who was nominated by Congress (2012), and hence the newspaper has a pro-Congress tone. (*The Congress is a secular party whose social liberal platform is generally considered the center-left of Indian politics). The KK Birla group owns a 69 percent stake in HT Media. Revenue is derived through advertising.

Analysis / Bias

In 2022, Reporters Without Borders ranked India 142/180 in their Press Freedom Index, which is borderline completely lacking press freedom.

In review, The Hindustan Times reports national and international news with a left-leaning bias. Articles and headlines contain emotionally loaded language such as this Thackeray under pressure from Bollywood’ mafia’ to derail Sushant probe: Sushil Modi. This story, like most, lacks hyperlinked sourcing. There is low bias when reporting on international news as they use credible sources such as Reuters, AP and maintain factual reporting.

Editorially, they generally align with The Congress Party, the liberal opposition party to Modi’s conservative BJP party. The Congress Party advocates liberty, social justice, equality, the welfare state, and a progressive and secular society. We have also found evidence of promoting Pro-Russian propaganda such as this ‘The plunder of India’: Putin slams West as Russia annexes Ukraine’s 4 regions. In general, the Hindustan Times aligns left politically and has several examples of promoting misinformation, as seen below in the failed fact checks.

Failed Fact Checks

• Did RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat Say Nationalism Refers To ‘Nazism’? – Misleading
• Man from India’s Tripura had died in a hospital in Malaysia due to coronavirus. – False
• “Men are more than twice as likely to die from Covid-19” – Misleading
• Elephant was ‘fed’ a pineapple with firecrackers and that the incident took place in Kerala’s Malappuram district. – False
• A video of an earthquake is being circulated widely on social media as footage of the 7.6-magnitude quake that hit Papua New Guinea – False
• 60,000 rioters were involved in Bengaluru violence – False

Overall, we rate the Hindustan Times Left-Center Biased and questionable due to poor sourcing, numerous failed fact checks, and the promotion of propaganda. (M. Huitsing 9/5/2017) Updated (09/30/2022)

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/